Strengthening Shareholder Rights

In Citizens United, the Supreme Court gave corporations, labor unions and other associations license to tap their treasuries to make "independent expenditures" aimed at influencing elections. The decision has sparked the investment of millions of shareholder dollars, generally without notice to shareholders or any attempt to gain shareholder approval, to elect some candidates and defeat others. And because the funds often are funneled through non-profit groups that can conceal the identities of their donors, voters never know just who is buying the attention, and later the help, of our elected officials.

This spending is bad for our democracy and for the corporations that engage in it. Companies like Target, Bank of America and Duke Energy have seen their stock prices decline sharply or their reputations suffer amid reports about their political activity.

Citizens can stop this power grab. Through retirement and investment accounts, millions of us own shares of these corporate political investors and can use those shares to demand that corporate officers and directors keep corporate money out of our elections.

Latest Status

Amid heightened public concern about the influence of big money on elections and decision-making in Congress and state legislatures, Common Cause and the Health Professionals and Allied Employees Union called on Pfizer today to disclose its...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – At more than 100 annual meetings this spring, shareholders will ratchet up the pressure on corporations to disclose information about corporate lobbying and electioneering expenditures so investors can make...